The demi-lune triple-flap tea and card-table is more unusual than the simple hinged-top card table. The fashion for gambling has long been ingrained in the British tradition, wheras the fashion for taking tea emerged with the dominance of The East India Company during the early 18th Century, creating a vogue for this type of multipurpose furniture.
A similar mid-Georgian mahogany triple-flap card-table was sold anonymously in these Rooms, 8 March 1990, lot 70, while a related walnut demi-lune tea-table of circa 1710, is illustrated in G. Beard and J. Goodison, English Furniture 1500-1840, Oxford, 1987, p. 52, fig. 1.